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Bad Movie Wednesday

Supposedly this is in the same vein as Cloverfield, previously reviewed. It’s 10 Cloverfield Lane, released last year by Paramount Pictures. As before, this was available on Amazon Prime Video. Details are from Wikipedia. The opening title shows this is a Bad Robot production.

Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is turning her life around. Her boyfriend phones, begging her not to leave. She hangs up on him and finishes packing.

We see her driving across Louisiana. This appears to be a causeway across the Atchafalaya Swamp.

Comes night, and Michelle is still on the road. We know something bad is going to happen. A beautiful young woman all alone on the road late at night. A pickup truck comes up from behind and rams her car, causing it to leave the road and roll. When she comes to she is handcuffed to a cot in somebody’s survivalist bunker. Her injuries have been treated. Her captor is Howard Strambler (John Goodman). He tells her they must not leave the bunker. There has been an attack. Could have been the Russians. Could have been Martians. Martians have much better weapons. Michelle begins to doubt Howard’s stability.

There is another person in the bunker. His name is Emmett DeWitt (John Gallagher, Jr.). It turns out Emmett was originally hired by Howard to construct the bunker, and when the shit happened he barged his way in before the hatches got sealed. Michelle plots escape. She doubts Howard’s story about his daughter. Emmett identifies the photo Howard said was of his daughter as a girl who went missing in the area previously.

Michelle and Emmett scheme to overthrow Howard and send Michelle outside to seek help. Secretly Michelle constructs a body suit to protect from the poisonous atmosphere Howard claims. Howard gets wise to the scheme and has the two help him drag out a barrel of perchloric acid over by the bathroom drain. Howard then confronts the two and demands to know who is behind the scheme. Emmett confesses they planned to construct a weapon and take Howard’s gun. Howard shoots Emmett and dissolves his body in the perchloric acid.

Michelle retreats to her cell where Howard discovers the body suit she has constructed. He threatens her. She overturns the barrel of acid, and Howard falls into the pool of acid.

Michelle makes her escape from the bunker as the sun is going down. A flock of birds in flight reassures her the air is safe. But when she removes her face mask she observes an alien craft making an attack.

When one of the invading aliens confronts Michelle, she defeats it by throwing a Molotov cocktail in its face. She takes a car that previously arrived at the bunker (driver now dead) and heads off along the highway. The radio is working, and Michelle hears news of the invasion and the ongoing battle. The southern coast has been made safe, and when she sees a highway sign pointing to Houston she drives in that direction.

Yes, this is believable. Howard just happens to waylay Michelle on the highway as the alien invasion is getting underway. Michelle had been on her phone to her boyfriend just before Howard’s truck hit her from behind, and the boyfriend didn’t mention anything about an alien invasion. Coincidence? Believe it if you want.

Michelle finds evidence Howard previously imprisoned another girl in the bunker. What was the excuse then? Obviously not an alien invasion.

Howard’s bunker is capacious and well-stocked. And the standard stock for a survivalist bunker is a barrel of perchloric acid? Too convenient.

Michelle and Emmett decide they need to subdue Howard and take his gun. And they need to construct a weapon? There are two of them and one of Howard. There are many opportunities. All it would take is for somebody to bash Howard over the head with a can of beans. Their other scheme gets Emmett killed (and dissolved in acid).

God Particle is a film along the same theme as this and Cloverfield and is set for release by Paramount in October. Hopefully it will quickly go to Amazon Prime Video.